The use of microRNA expression profiling in the detection and prediction of Bovine Tuberculosis

MI：RNA有限公司是一家兽医诊断公司，拥有独特的、正在申请专利的生物标记物测试技术，我们的目标是利用我们的专业知识来探索牛结核病(BTB)的早期和准确诊断。该项目建立在我们之前成功的Innovate UK资助试验的基础上，该试验展示了我们的技术在早期约翰氏病检测方面的潜力，该疾病与牛结核病属于同一分枝杆菌家族的一部分。牛结核病是一种慢性消耗性疾病，对英国农业部门的经济、环境以及生产力和可持续性都有巨大影响。尽管几十年来广泛的、政策驱动的根除计划，这种应通报的疾病仍然在英格兰许多地区流行。目前的检测方法具有灵敏度低和经常出现不确定的反应堆(IRS)的局限性，阻碍了疾病控制工作。英国可能引入BTB疫苗(例如卡介苗疫苗)是一个进一步的复杂问题，因为动物在接种疫苗后可能被检测为假阳性。因此，改进的诊断将加强疾病控制，从而提高生产率，减少经济损失，并有助于实现可持续、安全、碳中性的商业模式。该项目将把MI：RNA的创新与苏格兰乡村学院(SRUC)的同事的研究专业知识结合起来。组建的团队将与英国政府动物健康实验室APHA合作，样本和数据将来自APHA，以及他们的专家和经验指导。项目阶段：第一阶段：将创建专门针对btb病理的microRNA(MiRNA)生物标记物的定制小组。这将与阴性对照和结核杆菌阳性血清样本进行试验，以生成这些标记物的表达谱，这些标记将由先进的监督人工智能算法进行分析，生成用于检测结核杆菌的初始建模系统。第二阶段：该阶段将使用之前APHA对受结核杆菌挑战的动物的研究中的纵向时间进程样本来优化和挑战模型。这将允许进一步改进该模型，以提高早期诊断的准确性。第三阶段：这一阶段将看到成熟的模型将面临区分牛结核病疫苗接种动物和真实牛结核病病例的任务，这里的成功将对计划的牛结核病疫苗接种计划非常有益。这些试验的结果将在同行评议的学术期刊上公开发布并受到专利保护，我们将最终确定下一阶段的研究和开发目标。这将直接进入我们的商业化计划，使产品投放市场，对英国畜牧业产生积极影响。

MI:RNA Ltd is a veterinary diagnostics company with a unique, patent-pending, biomarker testing technology and we aim to use our expertise to explore the early and accurate diagnosis of Bovine Tuberculosis (bTB).This project builds upon our previous successful Innovate UK funded trial which demonstrated the potential of our technology to detect early-stage Johne's disease, part of the same mycobacterial family as bTB. Bovine Tuberculosis is a chronic wasting disease with enormous implications economically, environmentally and in terms of productivity and sustainability for the UK farming sector. Despite decades of an extensive, policy driven eradication schemes, this notifiable disease remains prevalent in many parts of England. Current testing methods have limitations with poor sensitivity and frequent inconclusive reactors (IRs), hampering disease control efforts. The potential introduction of bTB vaccination (e.g. BCG vaccination) to the UK is a further complication, as animals can test falsely positive after vaccination. Consequently, improved diagnostics will result in enhanced disease control leading to increased productivity, mitigation of economic losses and assistance in achieving a sustainable and safe, carbon neutral business model.This project will combine MI:RNA's innovation with the research expertise of colleagues within Scotland's Rural College (SRUC). The assembled team will work with the APHA, the UK government animal health laboratory, from whom samples and data will be sourced, along with their specialist and experience guidance.Project phases:Phase 1: A bespoke panel of microRNA (miRNA) biomarkers will be created specific to bTB pathology. This will be trialled with negative control and bTB positive serum samples to generate expression profiles of these markers, which will be analysed by advanced supervised AI algorithms, generating an initial modelling system for detection of bTB.Phase 2: This phase will see the model being optimised and challenged with longitudinal time course samples from previous APHA studies of bTB challenged animals. This will allow further refinement of the model for improving early-stage diagnostic accuracy.Phase 3: This phase will see the mature model being challenged with the task of differentiating between bTB vaccinated animals and true bTB cases, success here would be hugely beneficial to planned bTB vaccination programmes.The outcomes of these trials will be released publicly in peer-reviewed academic journals and protected with patents, and we will finalise our next stage research and development objectives. This will feed directly into our commercialisation plan to make the product available to the market, positively impacting the UK livestock sector.